Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Comments
The lightning ball is looking a lot better. Still think it should move a bit faster.
Instruments & Taverns
With instruments I'm wondering if that will be for bard only or will anyone be able to do something like confer a long term buff at a tavern by playing music or other performance things. I know this has been mentioned alongside getting food buffs from taverns.
In other words, will there be a sort of Performance skill just like there's a Cooking skill? Even if there was a Chef archetype I would still think anyone could cook
Whether that's dancing, singing, playing an instrument or reciting a poem they're all a type of Performance.
Group Combat & Mana Management
I'm liking the flow of combat somewhat but I would have thought that having a Cleric, Mage and Bard on a team would mean mana management would have been possible to keep up with but it didn't look like it much in the showcase.
You even mentioned that the Cleric could give a buff that let people generate mana when damaging enemies but I had a hard time noticing any effect like that. I know the buff is there but it didn't seem meaningful.
With the Mage I remember it being said they would be able to generate mana for themselves and their teammates of which only the former seems to be implemented with Prismatic Beam (Arcane). The latter doesn't seem to be implemented in any way in the current iteration of the game.
Is this intentional and the plans with the Mage utilities have changed? Is it being moved to something else like the Summoner archetype or is it being moved to augments? For example, a Cleric/Mage could do it.
Bard Abilities & Combos
Abilities
I know you can't use the exact name but it would be cool to have something like Vicious Mockery. Throwing a tomato is not the same thing.
Could even have some flavor text saying, "Demoralize your foes by making fun of their height so that their minds will shatter," or something like that.
It could confer the Staggered status effect or if it crits it will stun.
Combos
I do like the saga combo system and I understand only one of them was ready to showcase as it wasn't all ready yet. However, it kind of made me wonder about all the other abilities.
Is it planned to add combo abilities to the other ability types? If so, will it be something like two more combo abilities for music and dance? Would make sense.
I don't have all the skills in front of me as the wiki hasn't been updated yet but it would be interesting if there was a combo skill to go along with each category that seems to define the Bard skill layout.
Would love to know.
Extra
I am kind of surprised that the Bard showcase came out before the Rogue as I thought it would be a harder archetype to implement. I'm guessing that the summoner will be the last to be shown.
8/10 !
Overall it was an amazing dev update. The Bard Archetype is going into the right direction!
I'm going to list a few things i was expecting to see out of the Bard kit. Maybe some augments/new skills or even skill upgrades are already planned to introduce such effects/mechanics!
Expected 2 to 3 static mid/long duration buffs like Oldschool MMORPGS had (5~30min). For example a buff that would grant +10 to All Core Attributes and/or Max HP. A Max MP, -10% Mana Cost to skills. Or a straight up weapon damage buffs.
Also expected a bit more temporary waterfall stat buffs like:
-Increased Stamina Max/Regen, Stamina Recovery
-Decreased Mana Costs, Increased Regen/Max Mana
-Disable Accuracy/Evasion(CC related), maybe nimble status affects this(?)
-Physical/Magical Penetration and Mitigation
-Elemental resistances
Question: is the Nimble buff for all evasion waterfall stats(Physical/Magical & Disable)? If that's the case it's pretty good since nothing on the kit buffs Disable Evasion or Accuracy, otherwise meh.
Other things:
Imo to many Healing Over Time skills. But it's not really a big deal since you can pick and choose what to use.
Missing at least 1 P/M mitigation buff.
Lack of a temp/conditional resist to certain CC's.
Idk why i was expecting at least 1 Weapon buff and 1 Weapon debuff, for example a buff that would enchant the next 3 weapon attacks granting extra magical dmg and convert a %(or flat) of said extra magical damage as mana. Or a debuff that would increase Weapon damage taken and stack up for each swing taken.
At the start as i was watching, i thought there wasn't enough complexity to melodies but then the masteries, Dances, Songs, Stories and offensive skills changed my perspective. It's a lot of stuff to keep track of. Plus the "Resonant Weapon" passive to complement the Melody effects!!! Amazing!
Even with the "Resonant Weapon" Passive and the active Pensive Melody i was expecting at least 1 more "on demand" mana related skill/buff. Either directly transferring your own mana to someone else, a temp effect that recovers mana with a condition, or an effect that makes mana usage more efficient on a single target.
Healing melody icon should be green! Everyone knows Green = Healing!
Expected 1 offensive mana manipulation skill, maybe not directly removing mana but as a Debuff that Increases the Cost. Maybe to much mana manipulation for 1 Archetype kit.
UI:
The Temp shield on the left of HP bar doesn't look intuitive. Temp shields should be placed on the right, this will give the impression that it's protecting the HP that is going to be taken off, since HP disappears from right to left.
Needs more info on CC immunity/diminishing returns. Looks like it was 15s of Sleep to proc immunity for that CC bracket/type. Showing a buff icon stacking up for that(and other) CC bracket(s) would be amazing.
Keep it up!
I'm going to be really harsh here because I care and I want the game to be great.
The game really doesn't have enough of a style to make it stand out. It feels very generic. I'm sure Jim Sanders is a great guy but as art director this is his job and it doesn't feel like a good one.
I know you say that once the lighting has been implemented correctly things will look a lot different but as you said this showcase showed most of it even if buggy. It looks bland.
I don't expect something like Wildstar or World of Warcraft but it has to be something. In the history of video games it's often been technical limitations that have bred creative art direction because of said limitations which in turn made stylistic and timeless art.
Now you have UNLIMITED POWWAA which while it gives unlimited freedom also makes it harder since now you don't need to use innovation that causes a certain kind of look.
I have neither the technical nor creative expertise on it but maybe play around with shaders or other ways of distorting what you already have just to see what you can come up with.
Or maybe create a community competition for people to try to come up with something. I don't know how that would be done exactly. Like, would you be sharing models or something but it certainly would be interesting to see.
I'm sure there's more options that I just don't know enough to put forth but I'm saying to please try SOMETHING! Please.
The spells are still much too flashy and overdone IMO. For level 10 group content almost everything seemed over the top for the miniscule amount of damage that was being output - There really needs to be spell visual progression in this game, lest you create visual fatigue so early on. When the group was fighting inside most of the time i could hardly tell what was going on or where the target even was; this was only a group of 6, I shudder to imagine how cluttered the screen will be at higher levels in a full group. This needs to be addressed sooner rather than later I can see this is going to get really bad and takeaway from the immersion and visuals. One of the devs kept saying to look for the glowing red eyes in the skeletons to see if they will revive but there is no chance you will be able to spot a small detail like that with how oversized and flashy most of the visuals are - tone it down please!
For the bard:
There were 21 skills on the skill bar but the bard still seemed a bit shallow gameplay-wise. The songs need something else because they come off as dull (gameplay impact-wise) for how big of a visual identity they have (again WAY to flashy) - I will reserve full judgement until i get my hands on it but overall the gameplay for the bard didn't seem that engaging mechanic-wise. The dances were nice and the saga finisher and builders were cool. I think you need to add some more abilities that are unique rather than just shades of the same thing (ala 5 songs that are just diff flavors of a seemingly smallish impact buff). As a starting point the Bard is in a decent place but still needs ALOT of work.
Spell book was cool overall and good addition to the weapon repertoire.
Talent tree:
It has gotten better and less confusing looking but overall i think it needs to be rearranged in a more traditional way (think WoW talent tree setup). Starting from the bottom or left side and moving up/to the right seems more natural. Also the fact that it appears that so many of the class tree nodes are just literal spells makes it seem like there is a lack of content in the class tree as normally you get new abilities as you level and not have to actively choose them. Most of the classes abilities everyone should get and the class tree should be for specializing (i know there is some of that in the class tree but it seems there are too many skills there that have to be chosen instead of given as part of the class leveling up).
Visuals:
I am not sure exactly what it is but compared to every other UE5 game i've seen AOC seems to be lacking something from making it really 'pop' visually. If i had to guess its lacking sharpness/shine which makes it look less detailed when you aren't zoomed in - i watched it on 4k on YT and it seems somewhat dull.
Overall its progress and we need to get our hands on it to see how it actually feels/plays but the spell visuals need to be toned down and there needs to be visual progression as you level up because it seems like way too much at such an early level.
Perhaps it was Bucky's amazing gameplay skill, but nonetheless, it really showed the power and importance of support.
Also, I wanted to call out the adds that were pulled in when Steven missed the jump on ascent and flew through the window into the lower level. Aggroing what looked like another four or five adds.
We all make mistakes or have a poorly timed skill issue that happens sometimes. Glad to see the game developers sometimes have those same stupid things happen to them too 😀
The entire battle through that area was incredible.
The Bard itself needed a little more self protection whether it be more knockback on the instrument, a mind control, or a different CC type. Because of the diminishing returns there was a couple times that the Bard was under pressure and harassment. But then to use a dance to move in, interrupt the boss from casting, and move back out was some pretty amazing moves.
Nice show today, thank you.
Good overall, good animations and some variety spells.
What excites you about playing and interacting with the Bard Archetype?
I wonder if the bard can do content like some quest by himself and how efficient they can be in pvp.
Is there anything in particular you’re excited or concerned about regarding what was shown with the Bard Archetype Preview?
I need more instruments spells, cc break ability that everyone has.
Are there similar Archetypes you’ve seen in other games that you like or dislike? If so, please explain!
Not really.
What are your thoughts on the Bard abilities, mechanics, and combos?
The dash ability needs a change in color I think maybe because It would look better. I still can not crearly picture a combo (more like half combo) but the saga mechanics in so cool more of that please.
Do you have opinions on the instrument animations, Bard VFX, and Bard SFX? If so, please share them!
I would like more instruments showing and weapons. btw spell book looks nice.
Even in its rough state, you Bard Archetype is the most vibrant, energetic, and inventive Bard archetype/class I have ever seen in any game or fantasy story.
The Bard is shown to dance, play instruments, and sing (direct spell casts). And such a colorful palette of abilities. I can almost taste the rainbow.
The Bard seems to be a jack of all trades caster. A little bit of everything, with great support abilities.
I can already think of the possibilities with the Bard class combinations.
Besides all this. The Bard is likely going to be a favorite in the roleplaying factions. I can already see roleplaying caravan/ship traveling circus guilds. Given how large the world of Verra is planned to be, I can see such traveling guilds being something. (Even though it might not be planned at the moment.)
A minor suggestion. Given how colorful and animated the Bard's abilities are. I hope that for non-combat game events, like festivals, that Bard can show off their abilities in areas they cannot damage anything.
Also, it is nice to see what a outdoor group dungeon crawl in Ashes of Creation is like.
On the Alpha 2 being pushed back to October. I do not mind. This give me, and I am sure others, more time to save money for computer upgrades.
I think the Preview was very well structured, though I will have to say, as much as I love Stevens excitment to show these off, having something happen on stream while something different is narrated by Bucky in the background made following the ability presentation at times hard to follow.
I saw the abilities in the first part of the presentation and my immediate thought was "Oh this would be REALLY useful in this or that situation / combination!" Which is exactly the feeling I am looking for when I pick an utility class. This has been further supported by the group game play, where it was proven that already the utility of this class is something you will definitely want for your group. Seeing that these abilities actually feel
impactful like that is what really got me fired up. Additionally, the sound and visual design around the abilities - those are really great, I really can see where the excitment of the team came from.
The combo potential with the different promotable effects on active abilities was also very good, this ensures that you are not a boombox on the battlefield but have to actively engage and disengage, really good that there are so many combos even within the Bard abilities, this makes him a great enabler as well as executive for combos.
And lastly the Masteries - this is such a simple tweak with the song masteries, but the impact is to big, I REALLY liked that. This is probably one of the main ways we can define the position of our bard in a raid.
I really like the Archetype Showcase as well, but I also very much enjoyed the group gameplay part. The design of the Daragal Estate very much felt like how I would imagine the upper layer of an open world dungeon, you hear some rumors about goblins taking over an old estate, summoning a bunch of undead, you collect some items to reclaim the Essential Water... and then as you Node promotes it turns out that surpringly big well shaft reaches down to something a bit more... serious. The atmosphere was great and I just noticed that the sky box was doing great again, I might have even seen something like a gryphon flying in the distance?! Yeah, the atmosphere of the whole place was great, it reminded me a bit of going into Westfall (WoW) for the first time as a kid, I got me a bit giddy.
Now, what I found even better was the nasty rebirth mechanic of the undead. Its actually not such an insane mechanic, but it is an amazing and simple way to help people get used to the idea of aggro management, enemy separation and positioning. For the last point, the life drain is basically doing the same thing, if you don't know where you are running to break the drain - your group is in trouble for sure. Great, simple mechanics that make these encounters exciting!
As for concerns: Since this is a POI, I wonder how many groups it can actually "hold". We saw a group of 6 getting through reasonably well, but I wonder whether there really would be enough spaces within the POI to host more than just 3 groups of 6-8 people. Maybe this is just me misunderstanding for what group size these POIs are meant but it got me wondering, even though I am aware the intention and all for reasons for competion over the resources.
Something I didn't really like was the way the Combatant Flagging felt, it seemed that I was not the only one really understanding when someone was actually friend or foe (unless a golden buddy finger or tomatoe indicated it to them). As I understand after 90s of no PvP actions against another player the combatant status wears off again but I didn't really see the indicator for someone being an enemy player - maybe I missed that? Anyways, I guess I'd be looking for more clarity here.
Lastly: The performance drop that Steven mentioned with too many mobs on the screen - I get that point, but I just want to emphasize that for me personally this is one of the top reasons that I never even touched FF14. This stop motion stuff turns me off so badly, it reminds me off that this is ultimately just number based mechanics with a fancy overlay and a complete immersion breaker for me. I really hope this can be fully fixed because on my book that can be a deal breaker.
I guess the only thing that slightly went that route in my gaming experience was the Shaman in World of Warcraft, where the totems basically functioned a bit like the songs and dances. I liked that a lot, but I like it more in the framework of a Bard because the mobility makes this type of support work much more enjoyable. Though... having a high cooldown ability to place a Maypole that grants one of the songs for 60 seconds in a set location would be cool. Right? You know that would be cool ;D
As mentioned before, this skill kit to the extend that we saw it is great. It's not overpowered, but impactful, it looks cool, I love the Saga build up to crank out some big number and I especially like that I already saw that certain spells definitely are meant more for a backline or frontline role - allowing for specializations in either direction, which I think makes it even better.
So far, this was really great, though I would really need to take a look at all the promotable effects in the class to really get a feel whether or not this isn't a bit over loaded (which can happen easily)
Honestly: The instrument animations looked great but they also really confused me at times. Do they trigger automatically when 20s are over and I am not in a different animation? If so, I definitely would want more variety and length here.
Visuals and sounds were very good though I honestly have to say - I did not hear the dance abilities "blending in" with the ingame music. I didn't understand that in the first place how that was supposed to sound like but I also didn't really thought anything happened when demonstrated other than the background music and the sfx playing at the same time. What I can say is they didn't explicitly go against each other. (or was this the point about Buckys sounds being a bit off?)
I'll just say it: October is not Q3 and we have no distinct date to book vacations for. That kinda sucks. Not to the point that I am now all grumpy and will go on r/mmorpg to call the game a scam but still: feels bad.
Overall however I think things are coming more and more together, I liked how I recognized certain sound effects and spell animations already, I really have to look into whether these are also the ones that apply promotable effects - if that were the case, I'll be back here kissing designers.
Great showcase, this really felt like something that is ready to be tested on a bigger scale which you would want to see at this point for sure.
I don't like the book.Two reasons why I don't like it: screen clutter, and it looks kiddie.
Three things that might make it better for me. Remove it completely. Reduce the size of it. Or make it to where it's not constantly out, make it more temporary, like a coming and going spell effect.
I've seen some people say "if you don't like it then don't use it." Fair point. But if it's meta for anything, then it's meta. And even if I don't use it, it's still screen clutter from people who do use it.
Maybe it's a boomer take. But I just don't like it, can't help it. To be kind to the creator of it - it's a nice looking book. It looks fine for what it is. Animation is good, the art of it is good. I just don't want to see giant books flying around all the time though. If the book is kept, I think there's a lot that can be done to at least make it not as gaudy.
Great choice having Steven introduce the skills and later on having Bucky playing!
Overall I am very happy with where you've taken Bard. I love the songs, dances, melodies and the saga system. I really like how colorful you've made the Bard abilities. Very fitting for the class.
The width of abilities you showcased seemed good. I would need to see the rest to really comment on that though.
The more classes we see, the more we see the effects of the synergy between the different status effects, which is great for skilled group play.
Since it was featured so prominently, a few words on the book: It looked great.. if it was Fortnite you were playing. Or one of the Blizzard games. The book doesn't match the world of Verra as it currently looks. So either change the book to better match the world or change the rest of the world. Whichever is easier
I just enjoy watching the team looking like they're really, really having fun, and the Daragal adventure was basically perfect, if very slightly short (makes sense, given that y'all seemed to skip some parts for brevity). I can also easily visualize all the options that appear when the area is cleansed (i.e. for a short period there is none of this going on), Corrupted (this place would look awesome and terrifying if overrun by Corruption and corrupted mobs) or just endangered or something (let's say bandits or Sladeborn took over the whole area instead).
Please reference my group's Bard opinions on Bardliness, for mine, and assume I'm doubling up on all her praise, for your report. But I am therefore going to skip to the one thing that I found troubling.
When I made that Bard Desires Compilation thread my feeling was that it's really hard to get everything people want in a Bard into Ashes. I know some abilities weren't shown and are still being worked on, ofc, but something about this version seems off. Not even 'lacking' because then I'd just assume it was unfinished, but for what Ashes is, as a whole concept, it seems 'off'. The 'choice' isn't there. I saw no abilities that a Bard would reasonably choose not to spec into. I saw only a few light options for 'which Augments to apply to those abilities' that aren't going to end up being really easily pigeonholed for meta performance, i.e. there's not much reason not to go Minstrel, even with the fact that Heals and even HoTs can crit.
I'm used to this, it's not as if BRD/SMN, BRD/RNG, or BRD/THF were ever an option one would take in FFXI, and I also accepted/theorize that trying to make the outlier combinations work is a labor of love that the good Dr. Bucky will spend many hours on as we go forward.
But something's missin', and support almost always wants to have all of their options to do supporting with, or they'll end up constantly in 're-spec before heading out' mode. The choices of Augment Schools for Bard tentatively given, combined with the fact that not all four could be given, causes my feeling of unease relative to the current implementation to be amplified.
But, all that said, I still absolutely believe in the team's ability to do this in the end, and this glorious Bard and Bard showcase have only cemented that further. I guess I'm just thinking that it sounds like this is going to take much longer to get right than I thought, since I was hoping things were further along.
Because of that, I can't really give a lot of more specific feedback because I expect that either the strong-support type Bards will be happy and the others will be less so, which is what I (probably biasedly) feel like we're already seeing in this thread...
Or this form will get wrangled apart and put back together a few times before it's considered ready, in which case, feedback right now from me, a person who never ever goes anywhere near Bard class personally, isn't as helpful.
Good luck to all, regardless of which way it goes, and of course, I'll be even happier if I'm entirely wrong and neither of those things need to happen, and somehow the missing pieces make the Tricksters and Tellswords ecstatic to perform.
Just some things I wanted to mention about how I felt about the bard. I like the concept of there being songs, melodies, dances, and stories. From my impression, it would appear that all Bards get access to all of those things. While we did not see the entire kit. I think or would hope that there are specs that unlock more of each of those main concepts. It felt very busy and erratic to have all of that available to you at the level they were playing at. However, that could have been the way everything was shown initially by going through ability separately. I will be frank, having Steven click around the abilities one by one as acting if he was seeing it for the first time was a bit hard over just having Bucky just show us, clearly the person who worked on it. As for some of the abilities., again I'm sure it's because it's alpha, the lack of length or frequency of the instrument being played during the ability activation took me out of it. For the melodies and maybe I'm interpreting it incorrectly, it seemed like the flute was played for like 2 seconds and the ability kept casting. while the bard just awkwardly stands there. or was the cast time just that quick and that moving bar is effect length? I wouldn't expect the dances to have instruments given the complex animation that is going on, but maybe songs and melodies can have some instrumentation happening on screen. Has for the Saga effect. To be frank, again, that dragon effect was underwhelming and it would probably been better to signal that the animation is progressing upfront this is what we had before because what Steven showed us at the end gives a way more impact and direction. My only feedback there is maybe having the effect be over the player's head or over the center of the area of effect and not directly in front of you.
I think the bard is an interesting class. It will definitely be a lot of fun. But the fact that the book is on all the time, even when he's not in combat, bothers me a little. What I also think is very good is that there are pictures in the book and that you can turn the pages. I don't know how much effort it takes, but it would be an eye-catcher if there were different pictures on the pages. So one for healing, one for damage and one for support.
(+)
The bard archetype mechanic is easily my favorite of all the ones that were showcased before. It reminds me of Lego Racers, where you had to put together different color Lego blocks to create specific powerups during a race. I'm so glad Intrepid is brave enough to have so much uniqueness and so much asymmetry between the archetypes. Since most of the modern MMORPGs suffer from class homogenization, this is a breath of fresh air.
I really like the overall direction of the bard. A mobile, group-oriented support/healer. I was concerned it's going to be too similar to the cleric, but all my worries are gone now. Great job!
(?)
At first I thought Flourish was the bard-specific dodge skill, so I got really happy, then I realized it's a separate skill.
I'm not a fan of any archetype-agnostic mechanics like the current dodge system. I think it would be better if the flourish skill was the bard's dodge instead of it being an entirely different skill. I feel the same should be true for all archetypes. For example, the mage dodge could be Blink, the Figher dodge could be the normal dodge roll, the rogue dodge could be a 2-charge version of the "teleporting" dash that was showcased in the basic weapon showcase stream, the ranger dodge could be the backward flip, etc.
The Spellbook Weapon
(+)
I like the overall visuals and animations. I'm kind of neutral on whether it should be floating on in the character's hand, because although it's unique, it might look a bit weird when a less magic-oriented archetype is using the book.
(-)
Although I like variety with my weapons, I think AoC already has too many cleave/AoE attacks, and I'm concerned whether adding yet another one - in the form of the ranged-AoE spellbook - will do to the PvE meta. I find encounters with less mobs more meaningful and strategic, but with how many weapons and skills do cleave/AoE, I'm afraid we'll get a "lawnmower/hack-and-slash-like" PvE combat.
VFX/SFX
(+)
The skill animations were amazing and they blended so well with the running/dashing animation.
Probably my favorite skill aesthetics out of any archetype showcased so far.
If this is the standard Intrepid is trying to reach across all archetypes, I will be more than satisfied.
The music that was made for the skills were also great.
(-)
Steven did clarify this during the stream, but I want to mention it just in case:
Many of the larger VFX were really bright and obnoxious, especially indoors.
I assume cranking up these to the max is part of the VFX design pipeline, and this is just an earlier iteration. I hope once the lighting is more finalized, these can be toned down properly.
Talent tree
(+)
YES! I like this structure way more than the talent trees for other archetypes.
Easy to understand, tree-graph-style talent trees, with multiple layers of requirements are the best.
Please stick to tree graphs and give us even more levels of requirements (deeper branches) to make our choices matter. Being able to reach every node from almost every path makes your choices way less meaningful.
Elite mob difficulty
(?)
I know that balance is not the focus right now, but the encounter difficulty was so much different from what I'd expected that I had to mention this.
During the stream, a group of 6 level 10s were able to easily dispatch a level 14 ⭐⭐⭐ elite mob and a level 16 ⭐⭐ elite mob at the same time. Is this anywhere near the intended difficulty for elite mobs? Not only was nobody in danger during this fight, but players barely lost any of their resources.
Before the fights started I was expecting the following difficulty
(group sizes with same level as mob, normal gear):
⭐: ~2 players
⭐⭐: ~4 players
⭐⭐⭐: ~8 players
In reality, this is how it felt to me:
⭐: ~1 player
⭐⭐: ~1 - 2 players
⭐⭐⭐: ~2 - 3 players
I'm not sure if the latter is intended and we'll have different "boss" tier mobs that are intended for full groups, I just wanted to share my observations, and I hope you can clear up some confusion over this in the future streams.
The "Saga" spell looks interesting, but I don't find the animation particularly attractive.
Since the bard is also supposed to entertain the audience, it would be interesting if he were to send out an illusion of a dragon or a phoenix as a fire player.
Something like in the Middle Ages.
But he doesn't need to use a torch for this, because a gesture where he blows from the palm of his hand is completely sufficient.
Otherwise I really liked the bard, especially his variety of movements to tell stories.
Non-Bard Related:
DR Table: The team's approach to crowd control with a diminishing returns table is a great start for preventing players from being stunlocked. We'll see how it evolves and tests out.
Combat Markers: I would rather see combat markers baked into individual kits rather than available to everyone. This would increase data obscurity and enhance coordination efforts, raising the overall skill ceiling.
Skill Trees: I like the Bard skill tree approach much more than other skill trees because the Bard's skill tree is class-appropriate. With that in mind, I think the team should focus on developing skill trees within the context of each class going forward.
Bard-Related Feedback:
Thematic Concept: The Bard, thematically, is a good first iteration. However, I've noticed that many people have different ideas of what “weaving” actually means. To me, skill weaving is using your skills between the effects of songs and dances to maximize the Bard's overall effectiveness.
Weaving Potential: The weaving potential may be present, but I did not see a clear tempo, cadence, or rhythm in the way the Bard is played. It looked similar to Songcraft from ArcheAge. As long as the ability to reward a sequence like Song > Ability > Dance > Song > Ability > Dance (or any maximized tempo and cadence) is present, we should be good. I believe the Bard should be extremely rewarding for those musically and festively inclined.
Other things I would like to see are Skills that directly interact with existing debuffs like a short semi-spamable skill that increases the duration of an existing burn by 1 second. There should be some party focused skills that are not very good unless you have the right group composition. The fire Saga for example should interact with existing burning on the target instead of just applying its own.
The Melody-weaving seems very boring especially if it ends up being 100% uptime on 2 of them by simply pressing a button every 20 seconds. It needs more gameplay or thought put into it or people will just automate it with a macro or script. Something like the next basic attack as a 100% proc rate when you change Melodies would do wonders here. A shorter duration on uptime of 2 tunes would also probably be better. One of the spec options being shorter duration Melodies with higher impact might be interesting as well for Melody weaving centric players.
A lot of the buffs were a bit too generic or hard to tell how much impact they are actually having. How is a player suppose to know if 10% attack damage is better than 15% crit at any given moment. Instead of Percentage buffs it should be something like Basic attacks deal additional magic damage on hit. Everyone would know how to best make use of that buff and it could even change how they are playing for a bit. Just make it shorter duration and high impact.
There should be more reactionary skills, Instead of directly healing it should instead repeat the last non-instant cast heal the target received. This would be high skill cap and would make the bard feel like they are working with the cleric not just being a worse version of the cleric.
As a mirror to the Gambit skill, one that removes a CC from an ally then can be recast to apply the remaining duration on an enemy would be great. It would reward fast cleansing with a longer duration CC on the target.
On a side note please consider changing leech effects to heal on hit effects. They serve the same purpose but do not hyper scale with damage. Creating a damage = defense stat is always extremely hard to balance. Leech effects are problematic in most games they are in.
Of course it's still work in progress, but with the ideas and intended changes you shared with us during the stream I think the end result will be spectacular.
Sound, animations, class skills and identity are on point and there's a lot of potential for even more in all aspects. There's so much flavor here that other classes like mage or cleric look a little bland and uninteresting now and they need a little extra work and maybe even some reworks to get to this level.
-In general. It's a sassy force multiplier with something to help all other classes shine and many other things to bring to the table by itself. Great synergies with both his own skills and other classes ones. Right now I see myself bringing two bards in basically any 8 man party and probably playing one myself.
Missing some raid-wide buffs but I'm sure we will see them later. Maybe even some synergies with other bards in the party/raid?
-The gameplay is interesting, deep, active and dynamic for a support. Don't see myself getting bored playing one or feeling like a buff bot, something that I can appreciate as a long time l2 bladedancer player.
-The new skill tree design is interesting, we will need to play around with it once is more fleshed out. Can't wait to see what you do with the different instruments and specializations.
-Melodies are great, specially with melody weaving. it's really fun and interesting and I agree it should probably be part of the basic class kit, it's too good to miss it.
The range is perfect, even on the offensive ones.
-Resonant weapon is interesting and really strong.
-Flourish is perfect, nothing to add there.
-Quick wit is a very strong basic ability, interesting, fun and with a great combo. (Love the tomato)
-Dances and songs both buff and offensive ones are great in all aspects.
-Discordance and get out of the stage are very nice too. It will be much better with a huge increase in knockback for out of the stage.
-Gambit is amazing, love both the impactful and high risk mechanics and the effects. Hope to see more "tarot" themed skills and card related animations, I think it fits the bard really well.
-Stories are exactly what I was expecting for the bard, strong party-wide buffs with a twist, the themes are very cool and spending them for the different Saga "ultimate" effects fits like a glove, hats off. The pop-up book idea fits perfectly too.
Speaking about Saga. I'm extremely happy and relieved after watching the size and impact of the skill.
This skill, the melodies or ranger's raining death and scatter shot are great examples of the scale that big impactful skills should have. Please give us many more like them.
Watching the wizard gameplay I feel pretty disheartened. Excluding chain lightning (that hits like a wet noodle but that's an easy fix) the AOE spells feel too small and they lack impact. Even blizzard, one of the "big" ones is small and lacks "umph" for a pbaoe that puts you in a very vulnerable position in a class that is already fragile.
Please give wizards better and more impressive AOE, it's a staple of the class fantasy.
Another out-of-bard comments:
-The armor set looks great.
-Love everything about the tome, it looks amazing, plays well and I really like the idea of a ranged, hard hitting magic weapon with aoe capabilities. I think I found my main weapon if I end up playing a wizard. Can't wait to see more. (Please go crazy with the designs)
-You talk briefly about mounted combat. It can be really interesting and fun, bdo did it pretty well years ago and allowed many skills to be used while on a horse and we did some pretty crazy stuff with mounted wizards in pvp during the first years of the game.
-The mobs and encounter design is looking good. Fast paced, challenging and fun, The high level skeletons snatching resurrections from the lesser ones was specially nasty, loved it.
2. Bard feels/looks like a secondary healer more than a true support. Much of the kit is focused on direct or indirect heals instead of boosting other's abilities. It would be interesting to adjust these skills to give additional effects to the clerics' healing abilities, making them stronger, or changing a single target heal into an aoe heal.
3. Make weaving a base class kit tool. At level 10 and later levels add melody passives that add effects to the skills. Passives like adding a defensive buff to the healing melody, a DOT to the 10% damage debuff melody, an additional small health/mana regen to the speed boost melody, and an intellect buff to the mana regen melody.
4. Since the support class is in last place when it comes to DPS, heals, tanking, PVP, and PVE/solo they need to be so good at boosting themselves and everyone else that not having one in the group is detrimental. This kit does not look like that. There was a comment at the end of the stream that having the bard in the group felt good. If it doesn't feel GREAT then it's not good enough. As a support, you are bad or subpar at everything else you need to be the absolute best at boosting everyone else to the point of - OMG wow the difference between having a bard and not is insane.
5. As a counter to number 4 give the Bard DPS that is equal to other DPS classes without Bard buffs. Adding them to the group will give you the desired effect. It will also put them on a level playing field when it comes to solo PVE/PVP.
6. In addition to #4. Bard is left out of the rock, paper, scissor PVP equation. This needs to be made up for in other areas.
There are LOTS of aspects of the Bard kit that I love. The skills look great even if they don't fit in my personal class fantasy. The mobility skills are top-notch. This kit looks unique and fun I think it just needs to be turned up to 10! Pun intended.
- I'm concerned that when playing as bard, it won't feel like you're doing much. Melodies are a major part of the archetype's kit, but there's very little visual feedback that you're actually making a difference. Small health/mana ticks and percentage modifiers is what they seem to boil down to. Healers get the dopamine hit of big numbers, same with damage, while tanks have the feedback of the enemies attacking them. Bard just looked like it was... There.
- I'm concerned that the melody and dance icons are too similar to each other. I look at the 5 melodies and struggle to figure out which is which, same with the dances. They're not visually distinct. Meanwhile I see the clock icon and know exactly which one that is, and the same with the powerslide ability. After reviewing all the abilities again, I can easily distinguish everything except melodies and dances.
- I like the direction the lighting is going in, so long as the flashbang effect from abilities in low lighting is improved. That was starting to hurt my eyes.
- I'm concerned that the bard is going to become the meta gathering profession with all of its movement speed buffs. I haven't played, but I think Archeage had a similar thing with songcraft where it became the meta pack mule because of its movement speed buff.
- The stars indicating mob difficulty works well to convey information, but it doesn't do much to inspire fear. WoW's golden dragon around their portrait worked well to hype up an elite as dangerous.
- The Rosethorn set was a big step in the right direction in terms of female armor. You can actually tell it's a woman wearing it.
- I love the idea of a floating book and flinging spells out of it. But maybe the book could be a little smaller.
Do you have opinions on the instrument animations, Bard VFX, and Bard SFX? If so, please share them!
Big concern: Nothing looked bad, but for me the visuals failed to meet the bard fantasy, and this is coming from someone who has liked just about everything you guys have produced so far. They were too safe. Much of what we saw felt like a spellcaster flavored with song and dance, but that's not all a bard is, at least to me. To me a bard is flamboyant, crude, energetic, funny, confident in the face of danger. They play pranks, they flirt, they wear colorful clothes. They create laughter and joy, make people fall in love. They entice the senses. The art you guys shared with the singing dwarf bard woman in a funny outfit embodied this fairly well, but I don't think the ingame equivalent matches up. That personality feels like it's missing on many abilities (but not all).
These are the abilities that stood out to me, for better or worse:
Melodies: The animations conveyed the associated emotions well, I think, but the vfx felt disconnected from those emotions, being variations of the same effect but with a different flat color. I recognize that the music that will come with them later might completely change their feel and invalidate my criticism. Regardless of how they sound later, we barely got to see them. I think the animation could last longer, or loop constantly until you did something else. In general, I would like to see the instrument more, they're what the bard is usually about, so seeing a weapon out most of the time is kind of disappointing. Also, the "volume" on the melody vfx could maybe be turned down a little, they're kind of explosive compared to other abilities.
Flourish: Honestly, I think this looks perfect for how I envision a bard. It's over the top in terms of animation, and the vfx uses bright colors in energetic ways.
Shield/Nimble Dances: I like the sigil spotlight-esque vfx above the character, but the colors are quite flat. The drum beat could feel more energetic, it seems a little slow.
Mesmerizing Dance: This one feels like a missed opportunity, it could be bold and flirty, but it's a spin and a flashbang. Why not a spin and a blown kiss, or something generally suggestive? As a positive, this one does have a more pronounced use of color that I like.
Maddening Dance: This felt the most un-bardlike of all their abilities. In terms of quality it was good, but it gave me necromancer vibes more than anything. To me, a bard would drive someone mad by mockery. I'm not sure how to incorporate that in a dance, but mocking laughter would be a good start sound-wise.
Get Off the Stage: Perfect. I loved the sound effect of the flute swinging. The idea of it reminded me of Chris Pine's character in the D&D movie, smacking people with his lute.
Quick Wit: On friendlies, the vfx looks like a cleric's ability, holy and safe, but the character animation is flamboyant. On enemies, the tomato idea is perfect, it's loaded with personality. My only suggestion is to make the tomato seem more magical, to say I have the power of the arcane, but I still choose to throw a tomato at you.
Lovely Serenade: I like the romantic animations and the flower petals vfx. My only critique is to do away with the gold on the target, maybe replace it with something pink or red, something indicative of love. I don't think everything that heals needs to be gold.
Anthem of Alacrity: It looks really cool. The clock sound, the arm movements, I think they work well, but as a story, not a song. I would never have realized the harp notes were meant to convey singing if Tory hadn't said so. They sound like harp notes. He mentioned actual singing would be too chaotic, I assume he means like an actual song, so I wonder if singing individual notes would be ok.
Chilling Lament: Same issue with the harp notes. VFX are fine, I think.
Dark Lullaby: Love it, except for the harp notes again. The VFX convey darkness in a light-hearted way, and the animation is dramatic.
Discordance: This one is also really great. The haphazard way the character throws the notes, the appearance of the notes, and especially the sound of the notes as they hit the target are really good.
Gambit: Looks good. I appreciate the use of red, which is otherwise missing for an archetype themes around passion.
Conflict: Looks good, I again appreciate the red.
Saga: Looks extremely cool. I like that since it's a rarely cast spell, it gets to have much more pronounced vfx. The dragon is super cool, and the pop-up castle sounds like it'll make it even better.
tl;dr: I don't think the holy looking gold effects really fit bard, color choices sometimes look washed out, harp doesn't really work well as a singing analogue.
Edit: Someone else pointed out that the world looked a little desaturated with the lighting update, and I can see it. This might have something to do with why some of the vfx colors looked so bland.
I liked the variety of skills, and that it involves actual thought and tactics rather than just standing still and playing a 30-seconds long channelled song. I liked the animations, graphics, and the skill icons were fantastic, especially the sort of disco-style Dance ones. Resource sustain, damage boosts, healing skills, etc, was all good. Would be good to see a few more Damage Skills.
But...
I absolutely hated the Spell Book. It just looked goofy, and not at all in-keeping with the artistic style you've gone for.
The animations of the spell book were fine, I liked how the pages turned and the effects coming from the spell book rather than the character was a nice idea. But it just looks goofy floating there in mid-air, almost being pushed along by the moving character. And it was bloody HUUUUUGE, almost the size of the dwarf stood near it. Maybe that's all it was, I dunno. But it was so big you could have used it in place of a shield. It just seemed a lot better when it was held in the hand, it looked really cool like that, and wasn't ridiculously oversized cos it had to fit into the hand. I'd very much appreciate it if you'd take another look at the spell book, to see if you can make it less goofy.
Alpha-2 is likely to be around for years. You could pre-book your vacation time for November and still be confident of using it fully for Ashes testing. You don't need it to be at the very very start of Alpha-2. In fact, you'll probably get more out of it once Alpha-2 has been going for a while and has ramped up the content.
Why do you feel your vacation time HAS to be at the very start of Alpha-2? What do you feel you're going to be missing out on?
As a cleric main, I'm honestly extremely jealous with how awesome bard and ranger look.
I feel like the older classes need to be looked at again already....
Edit: spellbook is cool but should be smaller. It takes up too much screenspace atm
Cleric
1. The Bard tool kit felt duplicative of other classes in many ways (most of the heals) or just simplistic in how it buffs others, yes you covered all of the basic must-haves such as speed/haste like abilites. But I felt little synergy with a tank which would be different from how a cleric would interact with them etc (aka heal them). Bard feels like it 'parellels' other classes rather then acting 'perpendicular' to create something new with the person being buffed. Of all the abilities only Gambit felt really like an out of the box perpendicular thinking and truly Bardic spell.
2. I saw no obvious interactions with stealth mechanics either offensive or defensive, this may be because Rogues are not finished yet but it's something which should be addressed. An 'Alert Melody' to heighten the parties stealth detection would be the most basic start.
3. I did not really like that the Bards own damage output was entirely magical. This makes it feel like a low end mage who just speced into buffs (or a Bard who had taken a Wizard subclass). I always viewed Bards as having physical attacks as their backups as most RPG's treat them as a close kin to Rogues. Atleast move to a mix of physical and magical attacks with subclass and/or augments then swinging the scales.
4. The Saga finisher is a good concept, but I don't like that damage, particularly AOE fire damage is what you get, again this feels like intruding on the Mages domain. Something that falls more under illusion magic would feel a LOT better and traditional to Bards. For example making NPC's aggro each other or players to lose friend-foe identification would be a lot more thematically appropriate. Other players getting illusionary effects should be permitted but treated similar to stealth mecanics in that they can be countered.
5. Not having ones musical instrument in hand as the defaut feels wrong. A bard is traditionally identified by carrying that instrument, with an off hand or sidearm weapon pulled out as needed. I also want to actually have a crafted instrument object which (I will name) and has pertinent stats for my bardic abilities even if it's something simple like magic power stat or casting speed/cooldown.
Alternativly make instruments not exist as true items but just a 'skin' that the Bard automatically puts over the weapon they are holding with a particular instrument skinning over each weapon type (possibly modified by race as well), daggers becomes flutes, Axes becomes Lutes, Bows become Harps etc etc (this is for the benifit of other players to know the weapon type). The Bard then apears to actually stab, chop (El Ka Bong!) or shoot with their instrument while all the underlying stats come from the otherwise normal weapon. This gives us the consistent visual of the musical instrument in hand while still providing for conventional weapon usage without friction. A hybrid might also work in which the instrument item exists but has only bard pertinent buffing stats but no melee stats, but a Bard equips both it and a normal weapon at the same time and the instrument takes over all visual depictions of their weapon.
6. Their certainly looks to be design space for some VERY long duration buffs applied in Taverns and other safe zones or when camping/resting. Casting times of multiple minutes would be incolved and this is the natural place for multiple Bards to be able to interact to create a mass buff. This would be the kind of thing you do once a day in town or as the mayor rallies a war band to set out for a Node War.
7. Bag-pipes must be in the game
Macros - I would prefer a system where the weaving of Songs/Melodies is part of the Skilltreechoice. So I can spent skillpoints to weave Songs/Melodies and the outcome is a new skill.
Would be sad if people start to talk about how they randomized their timers on macros to not get caught.
eu-int-kds-in-aoc
The animations and movments looks really cool though.
I really wish the skill effects for all archtypes got toned down, and with that I mean a lot, and more focus on unique and interesting animations. The skill effects doesn't have to cover the entire screen, it doesn't have to be super much details with big symbols on the ground and such. Less is more.
I could barely see a thing due to all visual clutter during the fights. In my opinion, game swith this much visual skill effects looks cheap, it's like they trying to hide poorly made combat animations and visual integrations.
The spellbook looked okay, but maybe it doesn't have to be so big and don't need to be flying while out of combat or when weapons are sheathed.